Environmental Awareness Strategic Plan Minutes from January 27, 2010

Pleasanton Unified School District
Environmental Awareness Strategic Plan Minutes
January 27, 2010 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm
4665 Bernal Avenue, Kottinger Room

1. Welcome and Introductions: The following people were in attendance: Jake Berg (Lydiksen), Kim Lounsbury (Hearst), LeeAnn Pomplun (District Office), Erin Salcido (Alisal), Elicha Gastelumendi (Valley View), Melissa Ott (Amador), Jim Ott (Board Member), Nikki Montez (Hart), Mary Holmberg (Amador), Lori Bautista (Fairlands), Kirsten Dwyer (Valley View), Beth Louderback (Vintage Hills) Kat Peters (Walnut Grove), Bill Radulovich (At Large), Lydia Rice (Donlon), Lauren Caldwell (Hart), Jennifer Chen (Hart), Katharine Canning (Hart), and Tina Wise (Donlon).

2. Hart Student Presentation – Lauren Caldwell and Jennifer Chen, students at Hart Middle School, talked about the efforts the Hart Garden Club are making in recycling, and gardening. They have been working on the garden, using the composter, beginning a food scrap program, and providing environmental awareness. Students not part of the program have been asking questions which show the awareness is heightened. The students are pleased that they are the ones helping to educate other students. The leadership class does the classroom recycling.

3. eFair – Bill Radulovich stated that he and LeeAnn discussed the eFair earlier in the day and were bringing forward a proposal to postpone it this year. With all of the challenges parents and staff are facing, this is an activity that can be taken off of everyone’s plate. Bill is meeting with other stakeholders later this evening and will convey the decision. The decision was unanimous to postpone the eFair this year. Earth Week activities will still take place.

Bill also mentioned that the book Sustainable Communities by Woodrow Clark is now available and features Pleasanton. LeeAnn will see about ordering a copy that can be checked out through the Media Department.

4. Earth Week Ideas – As planning begins for Earth Week, the following ideas were discussed. Some have been implemented in past years.
- Book swap instead of a movie swap (Walnut Grove)
- Garden games (Walnut Grove)
- Scavanger hunt for recycled items (cardboard, recycle bins, etc.) (How many items can you find, how much weight can you find, how many buckets can you fill, etc.) (Walnut Grove)
- Litter free lunch, however, this is very hard (Walnut Grove and Vintage Hills) (look for participation rather than perfection)
- Make a scarecrow out of extra pots (recycle) (Hearst)
- Lights out for one hour (Hearst)
- Wear a green shirt (Hearst)
- Food drive instead of just doing this at a holiday (Donlon)
- CFL bulb exchange (Donlon)
- Creating recycled art (Donlon)
- Environmental maze (Fairlands) (Ask questions and provide two answers. The answer provides direction through the maze.) Lori will share information with other schools.
- Make liter soda bottles into art to hang in garden. (Fairlands)
- Combine Multicultural Festival with Earth Week (Valley View)
- Plant seeds
- Environmental crossword puzzle

5. Go Green Committee – The Go Green Committee has not met this year. The committee will meet on February 10, 2010 at 4:30 p.m. in the District Office, Conference Room 1. Kat Peters will facilitate the meeting. The meeting is open to everyone. It was agreed that the meeting structure shall be as follows:
- Best practices
- How other sites are handling issues (getting participation, food scraping, maintaining their garden, etc.)
- Training and sharing experiences (videotape as a possibility)

6. eCoach Update – The next meeting is scheduled for February 24, 2010. This subcommittee’s purpose is to reduce energy consumption and consists of staff.

7. City of Pleasanton Grant Update – LeeAnn provided an update on how the funding was used by each school site.

The Altamont Landfill grant is still open. You can contact Marsha Jones at Harvest Park Middle School.

8. Other Items:
* Vintage Hills PFC is conducting the following recycling events:
- Raise Your Hand: first week in February parents are asked to donate summer weight children’s clothes that will be sent to Haiti. The website is www.sironacaresblog.com
- Tri-Valley Humane Society: donation of towels, etc.
- Recycling shoes
* Lydiksen won a “Go Green” contest last fall that was cosponsored by KNBR and the University of Phoenix. A parent applied for the school and Lydiksen won $1,000.

9. Organizational Focus for the Coming Year
- This year, the Committee will meet as follows:
o March 24 – District Office – Bernal Room
o May 26 – District Office – Kottinger Room

- Topics
o March – eFair (event cancelled), Replacement topic – Sharing practices/Update
o May – Wrap Up
- Student Participation Discussion
o March – Amador

There being no other items, Kim Loundsbury moved to adjourn the meeting at 6:10 p.m.

Meeting on Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Yesterday evening, from 4:30 to 6:00, I attended my school district's Environmental Awareness Committee meeting. It is the second time I've attended a meeting and I was inspired to write about the experience.

The first item on the agenda after introductions was to have Hart Middle School present about what its environmental club has been doing on campus. Two girls from the club attended, and one read a well-written account of her school's green experiences over the past semester. They have a garden, a compost system and food scrapping program, modeling after another middle school in the district. The representatives from the middle school were wearing the neatest t-shirts: a design of a tree and its branches that spelled out the name of the school. The twisting branches spelled "ecology club." The woman who drew the design was at the meeting, too. Our environmental club needs to get some of those!

The committee is comprised of teachers, parents, a school board member (my dad), PTA members, and students. Representatives from Hearst Elementary, Hart Middle, Amador Valley High, Vintage Hills Elementary, Walnut Grove Elementary, Valley View Elementary and Lydiksen Elementary were present. Last night's meeting included ideas of what to do for Earth Week in April, grant opportunities, and updates from different school sites on what they are doing.

I updated the committee on the garden project taking place at Mohr Elementary that Amador Valley's Environmental Club is helping with. Check out my club's post about it here. Vintage Hills Elementary School is creating an event to have a used clothing drive to donate to Haiti, and later they plan on having a shoe drive through an organization called Soles4Souls, as well as a drive for used blankets and towels to donate to a local animal rescue organization. The overriding theme of the ongoing project is to raise awareness for the fact that we often have things in our homes that we no longer use or need that can be used by someone else who is not as fortunate. It's all about Reusing and Reducing!

Mr. Radulovich, former principal of Walnut Grove (mentioned here), who is very involved in making the world a greener place, brought up a new book called Sustainable Communities (edited by Woodrow Clark) that includes an entire chapter on how introducing and teaching certain concepts to children during kindergarten through high school can help create a more "sustainable community." Radulovich wrote the chapter, which is titled "Building Sustainability: The Role of K-12 Education" and which uses Pleasanton as a case study (see more information about Pleasanton's green happenings here). It's great that he was able to publish the chapter in the book and that the book will hopefully be useful for other communities looking to develop more eco-friendly practices. I totally agree that to create a culture of compassion for the Earth, we have to begin at the first levels of education, when children are still developing their opinions. College is too late, Radulovich mentioned. By that point, opinions are already established for the most part. To get kids inspired to care, you've got to show them the beauty of the natural world when they're younger.
The discussion also generated a lot of creative ideas for various activities the schools can do for Earth Week. Some were even potentially applicable at the high school level, like "No Litter Lunches," recycled art projects, and having the lights out for an hour during the school day. I will be discussing these awesome ideas at our Environmental Club's meeting this Friday.

I'm excited to see what other members post on this blog and I hope it will become a valuable resource of tips and experiences, as well as place to share the new and wonderful things the different school sites are doing.

Melissa Ott
A slightly different version of this was posted at Green Gal on January 27.